Golden Bridle
by Chibizoo
Summary: Pegasus’s life wrapped up in two chapters. Contains all necessary elements of angst, imagery, and possible brain damage. Pleasure was sacrificed for a good cause.
1. Chapter 1

Author's notes:  
  
Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-gi-oh, nor the song "Sweet Dreams" by Eurythmics.   
  
Note: The featured character is mentioned throughout as "him". Any paragraph that   
says/starts with 'He… etc etc..' (outside of a paragraph containing dialogue) is   
referring to said character.   
  
Warning: Minimal coarse language. Excessive philosophical ideas. Lack of plot x.X  
  
Events take place during/right after Duelist Kingdom  
  
*******************************************  
  
Golden Bridle [1]  
Part 1 of 2  
  
  
Emerald trees. Sapphire cloudless sky. Sunshine of purest goldenrod.   
  
He rubbed his sore eye with hands plastered in a rainbow of grime and tried   
again.   
  
Soft emerald-seafoam trees. Sapphire-lilac sky. Sunshine laced with goldenrod   
and virgin white.   
  
He was still missing something.   
~*~  
Sweet Dreams are made of these  
Who am I to disagree?  
Travel the world and the seven seas  
Everybody's looking for something  
~*~  
  
Calmly he stood up. His muscles protested, the sudden pain jolting up his   
spine where it registered half-dull in his mind. The feeling echoed and stung for a few   
more moments before giving a satisfied flicker and disappearing.   
  
The paint-created tree seemed to take a life of its own. Its branches began to   
bob listlessly up and down like a children's carousel, dressed in its Sunday best of   
speckled leaves. Rays of sunlight weaved into the humble trunk to form a   
vainglorious shade of honeyed-brown.   
  
The tree glistened like a jewel. It stood, stoic and proud against the lolling   
green landscape. The sealess sky lay behind it.   
  
His trembling fingers seized the paintbrush and dipped its dew-covered tip   
into another colour. There were many on the palette, some smudged and mixed so   
piteously that nothing of their true hue remained save a mass of clear liquid.   
  
~*~  
Some of them want to use you  
Some of them want to get used by you  
~*~  
  
He brought the brush to grace it against the edge of the canvas. One more   
stroke of green to bedeck the tree's crown, one more spot of vanity on those quivering   
chestnut branches.   
  
The tip of his brush soared upwards with a flicker of his wrist. He immediately   
swivelled his hand forwards and backwards faster than he could command. It danced   
businesslike in front of the growing canvas.   
  
Green trees. Blue sky. Gold sun.   
  
~*~  
Some of them want to abuse you  
Some of them want to be abused  
~*~  
  
The feeling was simple at first; simply an untended subtle ache in his heart. He   
ignored it and continued to work. His hand chose another colour.   
  
Fangs bared, it struck, rendering his self-appointed hand frozen. The poison   
spread like wildfire through his spine into the very recesses of each nerve until his   
whole body bathed in paralysis.  
  
His single pupil dilated, lids twitching uncontrollably in protest. It had sealed   
his mind entirely.   
  
His paintbrush clattered noisily as it fell from the nerveless hands. It traced a   
small arc of seafoam-green on the white marble surface.  
  
The pain dug into his flesh with teeth of razor steel. He fought to suck just one   
breath into his agonized lungs. Blood gurgled and foamed out of his half-open mouth   
and trickled gently down his chin. Sweat collected in thick beads to slide greasily   
down his long bangs. The damp substance graced his coveted fake eye.   
  
An eye made of gold and metal, forged over five-thousand years ago and   
tempered on power and will alone. His fake eye could feel the liquid brush against it,   
and it took a conscious life of its own to flicker in protest.   
  
No, not just an eye but the Eye. The Millennium Eye bestowed with a most   
ambiguous gift of mind-sight. It was the power of the despairing and lost.   
  
~*~  
Sweet Dreams are made of these  
Who am I to disagree?  
Travel the world and the seven seas  
Everybody's looking for something  
~*~  
  
The poison abated, withdrawing with it its paralysing effect.   
  
He collapsed onto his knees. They scraped painfully against the marble ground   
and allowed his satin-red pants to collect some of the paint still smudged against the   
tiles.   
  
It wasn't right. He shouldn't be able to feel pain; he couldn't feel pain. He was   
the antagonist, the evil mastermind whom everyone sought to defeat. He was the   
drunkard immersed in vats of wine and archives of children's comics.  
  
But he was also the artist who sought to control his fleeting shadow of self-  
expression and freedom.   
  
He inhaled again and clenched his right fist into a tight ball. In, out, in, out.   
His calloused white fingers flexed in compliance, the blood draining slowly from his   
palm to the very edges of his fingertips. He did the same thing with the other hand.   
  
It was amazing what one would do for a single moment of pleasure. If he   
could pay to live in blind happiness, he would write off his soul to Amun[2] with   
blinded longing.   
  
How could he plead happiness when he couldn't even envision it? He wracked   
his vast recesses of memory, and then invoked his muse of creativity in hopes to   
capture its essence. There was nothing but simmering pools of ignorance and   
pretences.  
  
Duel? For what? For that simple moment of satisfaction into achieving a lofty,   
most likely futile goal?   
  
It would be a bitch to bring Cyndia back from heaven into this self-appointed   
hell of his. It was a fool's game to simulate perfectly preserved beauty.   
  
He was a fool in a fool's game.   
  
~*~  
Have your head up  
Moving on  
Keep your head up  
Moving on  
Have your head up  
Moving on  
Keep your head up  
Moving on  
~*~  
  
In a paroxysm of pure willpower, he grabbed his discarded paintbrush and   
wrenched it to life back into his trembling fingers. Three inches away from the canvas   
he stopped. There was no paint left on the tip.   
  
~*~  
Have your head up  
Moving on  
Keep your head up  
Moving on  
Have your head up  
Moving on  
Keep your head up  
~*~  
  
For some unknown reason, his palette was unspoiled. It still rested in his left   
hand as innocuously as before, bland face painted in a ridiculous tirade of colours.   
  
He dipped the tip of the brush three times and then twirled it madly against the   
palette until the green collided with the white. It continued its trajectory along the   
palette face and collected consecutive hues of yellow, grey, and blue.   
  
At last the brush parted and struck the canvas in firework of splendour. The   
tree looked a bit better.   
  
It looked much better.   
  
He repeated it again. Again and again he shoved the paintbrush facedown onto   
the palette and remorselessly forced some thick oily hue onto the horsehair. The brush   
would linger just moments on the expanding canvas before ramming into the palette   
again.   
  
Palette, canvas, palette, canvas, until both were alive with a whirl of colour.   
They danced like multihued fireflies against the moonless sky, miniature angels   
glowing brilliant white.   
  
~*~  
Some of them want to use you  
Some of them want to get used by you  
Some of them want to abuse you  
Some of them want to be abused  
~*~  
The colour was everywhere at once. It burned into his eyes and left permanent tattoos   
of red, green, yellow and blue. They collected around his vision like the aurora   
borealis.   
  
The concocted hallucination suddenly jammed itself down his throat. There it   
shot purposely up through his skull and into the very recesses of his mind. His eyes   
began to tear uncontrollably with the sudden impact, vision dulling completely until it   
was dominated not by shapes but colour.   
  
There was colour everywhere. It was plastered in etchy lines and large   
globules. They collected in fat pools and clashed angrily for dominance against a   
limitless canvas.   
  
He forced the colours to concede back into the basic contours of his room.   
  
There was the forlorn painting still propped in front of him. He held the palette in his   
left hand though the paintbrush had once again fallen to the ground.   
  
As he knelt down on the smooth marble ground, he saw the reflection of a   
ghostly figure beneath him. He thought it was perhaps a mythical creature, its long   
silver main billowing behind it, eyes belligerent and brilliantly untamed. The tile   
tapered into a crevice to create the appearance of large white wings fanning out from   
the creature's back. It's mouth distorted to form a snow-white muzzle.   
  
The creature had only one eye. It was covered with a thicket of lustrous silver   
hair that danced below head level. He could envision it swaying just slightly in the   
wind, strands falling apart in purely symmetrical arcs.   
  
The creature was beautiful.  
  
~*~  
Sweet Dreams are made of these  
Who am I to disagree?  
Travel the world and the seven seas  
Everybody's looking for something  
~*~  
  
  
He placed a hand to stroke the elegant muzzle but jolted to a stop as they hit cold   
marble. The reflection flickered hesitantly before disappearing altogether.   
  
With a dismayed cry, he leaned closer to the tiles to find any traces of the   
beauteous creature. None remained.   
  
~*~  
Sweet Dreams are made of these  
Who am I to disagree?  
Travel the world and the seven seas  
Everybody's looking for something  
~*~  
  
The paintbrush clattered onto the ground again, complimented by the   
secondary clunk of the heavier palette. Smudges of colour flew onto the marble floor   
to paint it more vainglorious and complete. Some of the paint squeezed out from the   
upside-down palette.   
  
~*~  
Sweet Dreams are made of these  
Who am I to disagree?  
Travel the world and the seven seas  
Everybody's looking for something  
~*~  
  
He brought his dirty, crackled, brightly masked hands to his face. His single eye   
allowed only one trail of tears.   
  
They dropped, void of colour onto the smooth marble ground in sickening splatters.   
Some of them travelled along the tile crevasses to mix amongst the discarded paint.  
  
***********************************  
  
End notes:  
  
[1] Yes, I'm referring to the golden bridle used to tame the flying horse Pegasus. It's a   
Greek Mythology reference, for those who are really lost.   
  
[2] Egyptian mythology reference. Amun was half-crocodile, half-hippo creature who   
would devour the souls of the impure before they entered the underworld.  
  
The next part uses the same song, following as the conclusion of this part. There's at   
least more of an attempt at plot in the next ^^;;; 


	2. Chapter 2

Author's notes:  
  
Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-gi-oh, or the hugely overhead song "Sweet Dreams" by   
Eurythmics.   
  
For the brave souls who actually made it this far, enjoy ;)  
  
**************************************  
  
Golden Bridle   
Part 2 of 2  
  
He had forgotten how long he lay there.   
  
Sunlight filtered into the single glass window to strike his pale face. It painted   
rays of pure silver against his matted grey hair. His half-luminescent locks were   
spread around his unmoving body; tangling around his soft neck; clinging to his shirt   
fabric; knotting against each other in protest.   
  
Perfect beauty and silence. This was the ethereal promise of oblivion, the pure   
serenity after enduring so much pain.   
  
Outside the solitary window lay the blue sky. The wind was soft and warm.   
Specks of clouds dotted the azure backdrop.   
  
~*~  
Sweet Dreams are made of these  
Who am I to disagree?  
Travel the world and the seven seas  
Everybody's looking for something  
~*~  
  
Veils of silver hair once guarding his face parted just slightly as a breeze   
swept through the room. Individual strands began to dance under the gentle whisper   
and made his cheeks burn with a tingling sensation. Some of the hair brushed against   
a chunk of his newly uncovered flesh. Their footsteps stabbed iron-hot daggers into   
the tender tissue.  
  
He denied it. He was beautiful, he was superior, he was enlightened.   
  
Something warm dribbled down his cheek in an already-dried stain and fell   
gracelessly into a collected puddle on the ground.   
  
He frowned. Crying was for the weak and pitiful. Besides, the tear ducts   
bestowed upon him during birth had been crudely removed from that eye.   
  
Drip. Another droplet squeezed from the futile ruby-crackled opening and left   
a silent ripple as it struck the puddle.   
  
~*~  
Some of them want to use you  
Some of them want to get used by you  
~*~  
  
He ignored. They were not his tears. They did not belong to him. All that   
remained precious was this state of pure bliss. He had been severed by the   
enslavement of pain and had escaped material agony.   
  
The door to his chamber opened slightly. It hesitated just enough to let a   
trickle of artificial light escape into the bleak shadows of his chamber.   
  
He was beautiful Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.  
  
Seconds later, the wooden door flung wide open with a loud crack and gust of   
stagnant air. Somebody stood at the opening blocking the artificial light. This person's   
face was poised in a look of shock and absolute revulsion.   
  
~*~  
Some of them want to abuse you  
Some of them want to be abused  
~*~  
  
"Master Pegasus!"  
  
There was some incoherent babbling at the other end following those words.   
He ignored them. All that mattered was that he was beautiful and in heaven.   
  
"Master Pegasus!" The person continued to cry out in a horribly piteous   
manner. "Please hold on! I'm going to get help."  
  
Blue sky. Green trees. Golden sun. He stared out the window with this single   
eye as he heard the door slam hurriedly a distance away from him. The pool of blood   
rippling under him was disturbed again.   
  
There was a muffled sound coming from outside the door. It grew and   
accumulated from the murmuring chorus into a symphony of euphoric syllables.   
  
The door slammed open. People rushed in at all corners and barred the entire   
room with their grossly contorted faces. One of them brushed a finger along his   
(beautiful) unmoving body.   
  
And then the pain started again.   
  
**************************************  
  
~*~  
Sweet Dreams are made of these  
Who am I to disagree?  
Travel the world and the seven seas  
Everybody's looking for something  
~*~  
  
White-washed walls. Grey equipment. Red blood hung in a shiny plastic bag,   
tailed by a long coiled wire that stuck into his skin.   
  
There was an infinitely annoying beeping sound coming from an unregistered   
corner.   
  
His single eye fluttered open and closed. With all the consciousness he could   
muster, he forced his unbound hand to squeeze shut before relaxing again. He could   
feel the warmth of his blood collect into his palms and drain into the very recesses of   
his fingers.   
  
If just minimal pressure of hair follicles pressing against his exposed wound   
had caused pure agony, then this feeling was beyond description. At first he believed   
this was Hell. The thought then came that Hell was not nearly as lonely or deafeningly   
silent. He was a fraction of the many who deserved to suffer.   
  
His head was pounding so loud it seemed ready to burst like an overripe fruit.   
At the same time, he felt a billion needles squeeze under his skin and bury deeply into   
his skull. Perhaps they would blend, silver-hued among his hair like an artificial   
forest. The pain they elicited was ingenious.   
  
The pain pounded in every corner of his mind until it filled the smallest of   
recesses with molten pools of frustration and sheer agony. His body was paralysed;   
unable to budge the slightest without being constrained, but his mind was at liberty.   
  
No. He would be lying to say his mind was free. The voracious serpents lay   
right at his feet and clung to his shell-less soul in possessive adoration. Their   
poisonous scales burned his every contour of memory and laughed at his naked husk.   
  
Separated, severed from his soul-less shell he curled into a corner around the   
serpents and cried. He wrapped his arms around his knees like a child and let the tears   
dribble freely down from his already-fading appearance. What did he look like? Did   
he remember?   
  
One of the serpents glared at him with its ruby-red eyes. It clutched a relic of   
purest gold, wrenched in the shape of an Egyptian-styled eye. He had been beautiful   
then.   
  
~*~  
Have your head up  
Moving on  
Keep your head up  
Moving on  
Have your head up  
Moving on  
Keep your head up  
Moving on  
~*~  
  
Someone entered the room adorning his physical body. He quickly fled from   
the serpents and dared himself back into his former throne of consciousness. A   
shadowed figure stared at him from the murky entrance.   
  
His single eye lolled vainly to one side in further attempt to capture the   
appearance. Though his efforts were in vain, the unmentioned visitor was steadfastly   
approaching. Trepidation began beating in his heart. Who was this stranger? He had   
nothing to offer or give: former glory and treasures abandoned to the serpents that   
haunted his caskets of memory.   
  
~*~  
Some of them want to use you  
Some of them want to get used by you  
Some of them want to abuse you  
Some of them want to be abused  
~*~  
  
"So you are here."   
  
His heart plummeted entirely. A set of pure red eyes gazed downwards at him.   
The visitor's pale face was curved in a wicked grin; enforced by layers of serrated   
iceberg-white hair crowning his cheekbones.   
  
His single eye dilated rapidly. His breathing began to rise and fall too quickly,   
chest burning like liquid fire.   
  
"Ironic isn't it?" The visitor exclaimed, chuckling darkly. "One moment we   
are masters of the world, and the next moment, we are in…Hell."  
  
He parted his crackled, bloodied lips to deny, scream the buried, collected pain   
out of his chest and thrash in rampant fury. He was restrained. A soft gurgle of pink   
foam escaped from his mouth to dribble in a disgusting mess down his chin.   
  
"The doctors were shocked by your condition. They wondered who could have   
committed such heinous abuse." The voice commented, brushing back a lock of his   
jagged white hair. The golden relic around the figure's neck jangled some. "A pity   
that you gave up at the end. How easy it would have been if you had denied it all."  
  
He shuddered. The visitor was now dangerously close to his face, whispering   
the poisonous words to his ear.   
  
"They said you were not only a painter but a poet."   
  
His single eye rolled madly, flashing the whites like ocean foam. His mouth   
continued to froth in silent despair.   
  
"I have uncovered a suitable poem for your occasion. I believe it's quite a   
modern one; if I am not mistaken." The voice chuckled, drawling every word to an   
excruciating depth.   
  
Even in his lost and chaotic state, he heard it. He heard it and he remembered   
it. [1]  
  
~*~  
Sweet Dreams are made of these  
Who am I to disagree?  
Travel the world and the seven seas  
Everybody's looking for something  
~*~  
  
Even when the pain travelled like enraged mercury throughout his veins, he   
could still hear the echo of words. His body spasmed uncontrollably, buckling against   
their restraints and his single eye began to cloud and shut down.   
  
A final jolt and it was over. He tiptoed past the sleeping serpent, careful not to   
awake the one clasping the golden eye-shaped relic, and jumped into the pits of   
infinity.   
  
~*~  
Sweet Dreams are made of these  
Who am I to disagree?  
Travel the world and the seven seas  
Everybody's looking for something  
~*~  
  
*************************************  
  
[1] The poem was an excerpt from TS Elliot's "The Hollow Men". I didn't actually   
include the passage, but it's one of my favourite stanzas, and I quote it quite often:  
  
"This is the way the world ends,   
This is the way the world ends,   
This is the way the world ends,   
Not with a bang but a whimper"  
  
This fic was built on symbolism. My challenge question is whether or not you can   
figure out what the "paintbrush", "window" and the "red-eyed serpent" represent.   
Good luck (heheheh…) 


End file.
